Dr. Shades wrote:"Tortured people?" Where are you getting this, who was tortured, and of what did the torture consist??
Charles Allen and Bishop Edward Partridge, were beaten, tarred and feathered. I call that torture, don't you?
Dr. Shades wrote:Who on earth ever lauded them for THEIR act? Certainly nobody here.
Nobody is considering this in the context of the Nauvoo press, either...which if y'all did WOULD alter the rhetoric considerably, I think. As for who lauded them for the act?
Why, the men who burned the Jackson County press, burned the building down and injured people were very proud of what they did and bragged about it to all their friends, to great acclaim. When the Mormons attempted to get some redress in the courts, the COURT found the perpetrators liable (they couldn't exactly declare them innocent since the perpetrators themselves loudly proclaimed their guilt; they were, as I mentioned, quite proud of it). It was considered to be a 'civil matter,' not a legal one, and they were ordered to pay damages.
Which amounted to a penny and a peppercorn.
Don't know about you, but THAT'S being lauded.
Now THIS is the context in which the Nauvoo press should be considered, along with other incidents of press burning at the time, none of which was considered to be much more than exuberant expressions of opinions; the people doing the destruction didn't get into a whole lot of trouble, unless someone was made dead.
Shoot, even the people who burned Elija Lovejoy's press and killed HIM got away with it.
Dr. Shades wrote:Charged with treason, yes. Shot by a mob, no.
Charged with treason...no.
The only reason he was CHARGED with treason is because one could not get bail for that charge, and the leaders of the mob wanted to make sure that he was where they could get at him. They knew very well that even in that atmosphere, they couldn't make a treason charge stick...not for destroying the press OR for declaring martial law.
Dr. Shades wrote:Remember, nobody ever sang "Praise to Missourians, who de-stroyed the print press," nor did anybody ever assume they had been visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ. Nor does anyone think they were chosen by the Great Jehovah, the Prince of Peace, to restore his true gospel. Quite simply, they were frontier ruffians from whom nobody expects any better.
And you expected better of a man YOU do not think was a prophet, who shared the same culture and values of those you excuse?
Dr. Shades wrote:But Joseph Smith, however? Call me crazy, but it's natural to assume that the man who communed with Jehovah ought to be held to a somewhat higher standard of moral conduct. Quite simply, a true prophet would've known better.
Why?
Prophets were/are men. With flaws. They have done some incredibly stupid things. When you read about them in the Bible, there isn't a single one of 'em that has more than a verse or two devoted to him who did NOT have a rather large flaw/did something incredibly stupid.
Some of 'em were downright murderous. They were people; men of their time. They did what everybody else in their time did.
